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Oftentimes, the reason for this is that those hotels were particularly early in offering their guests internet access but then bought into a draconian external

Oftentimes, the reason for this is that those hotels were particularly early in offering their guests internet access but then bought into a draconian external service provider with awful service, high fees, very long contract duration, and slow speed. Usually, when I'm in an expensive hotel with awful (paid) internet, I speak up and they explain this to me. The last hotel where that happened explained to me that management bought into a internet contract in 2005 that will last until 2015 at which point they plan to simply rent their own DSL. But until then they're, by contract, obliged to offer their guests only their contract partners awfully slow internet. Just like in business, small companies / hotels can move faster.

joeframbach 12y ago
Here we see in a smaller scale what a lack of ISP competition does to a region. This is basically what many municipalities bought into in order to afford Comcast's infrastructure 15 years ago.
ejr 12y ago
I can corroborate this. I did a network setup at a B&B that hadn't had any wi-fi since the place got internet. We bumped up their ISP plan to proper business class and got an upgraded router to boot. I ran wire from it to each floor via existing conduit and set up APs. No middle-man slave master for internet and certainly anyone else can service the setup after I was done. No other contract except their ISP. Everyone was happy. A neighbouring place just a few turns away had wireless quite early from some archaic monster and they charge a hefty fee too. I have better reception on my cell when I'm in a low valley than at that place - 2 bars max. All the guests were huddled in the lobby.
- jonesdc 12y ago
  Hey EJR, I am new to HN so not sure how to message you outside this thread. Do you have any links that could point me in the direction to do some of my own network setup at home? I'm just a beginner but would love to start learning and fix some stuff
  - ejr 12y ago
    "Eli the Computer guy" does some pretty interesting video tutorials on YouTube. He tends to go on and on a bit, but overall he does a nice job of explaining networking basics, how to run cables, use RJ45 connectors - this is very important if you run your own wire - and setting up routers/switches. Edit: Here's the full playlist of his networking videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8RSFQG8do&list=PLF360ED1082F6F2A5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8RSFQG8do&list=PLF360ED108...
  - gergles 12y ago
    Also, HN doesn't have a private messaging feature. If users don't put their email in the free-text field on their profile, there's no way to get in touch with them privately.
    - shekhar101 12y ago
      He probably also doesn't know that he isn't getting any 'notifications' for reply on his comments and most probably he's not going to see this either :D
      - jonesdc 12y ago
        Haha, I'm an avid reader of HN, so I tend to revisit articles to check for updates. Thanks for the help everyone
cynicalkane 12y ago
The standard solution (via Coase's theorem of economics) is that they should just buy out the contracts, but it seems this isn't happening. I wonder why this is.
- pekk 12y ago
  They don't care, switching is a pain and the given excuse is offered just to pacify the complaining customer. "Nothing we can do."
- jpatokal 12y ago
  Because the customer doesn't find out that the wifi is crap until they've already bought it, and they don't have an easy way of disputing the charge either. So unless repeat customers complain/start walking, the hotel has little incentive to pay money to fix this.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Because even Coase himself showed that his theorem is BS in real life situations: "In this 1960 paper, Coase argued that real-world transaction costs are rarely low enough to allow for efficient bargaining and hence the theorem is almost always inapplicable to economic reality."
antocv 12y ago
What is stopping them from offering a parallel much faster WiFi? They dont have to break their contract - pay the "external service provider" their fees, and still have money left over to pay for a real service - fast and non-shitty WiFi. When it comes to 4 or 5 star hotels, I am surprised by this bullshit. What they are in effect saying to you is "we made a bad business deal and it costs us too much", to which I replied -in a similar situation, 4 star hotel with 1992 wifi (yes it didnt exist at the time so shitty was it) -- "I must have made a bad trade myself, to pay for stay with wifi when the wifi in fact imaginary, good day" and never went to that hotel again, found a 3 star later on with 100mbps and uncongested wifi. Its not like paying for good WiFi will bankrupt them.
- dspillett 12y ago
  > What is stopping them from offering a parallel much faster WiFi? Exclusivity clause in the contract possibly. They could buy out the rest of the contract, but that could be quite expensive (and the other party is under no obligation to agree unless there is already an option defined in said contract). Even if the WiFi exclusivity is not explicitly stated there might be a clause about the hotel ensuring there is minimal interference with the service and setting up another set of APs on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands could be claimed to breach that clause if the provider wanted to get litigious. For chain hotels it is even harder as the decision of who to use to provide the service could be out of their hands.
  - antocv 12y ago
    > They could buy out the rest of the contract, but that could be quite expensive (and the other party is under no obligation to agree unless there is already an option defined in said contract What kind of dumbmass businessman signs such a contract? No matter the price, the contract should have included "responsibility to meet customer expected speeds and availability of the wifi service provided". And then cut the contract because they arent in fact providing a usable wifi. I think its just a bullshit excuse to keep paying very little while not giving a crap about their customers - since they got the 4 or 5 star rating anyway. This website is great - I will use it.
mmmcm 12y ago
This is true. I worked for a global telecoms company with hotel groups as customers for several years. It was shocking how slow some of their connections were, and expensive too.
cnst 12y ago
I've asked a lot of hotels about these things, I was usually told that it's the hotel that doesn't want to pay a little extra for the higher speed uplink (by the support), or that they've already exhausted their budget for this year (believe it or not, the budget thing was at Hyatt House once). I'm not sure that many places would be under a 10-year contract; that sounds like too long a contract (especially if the company wants several grands for support on a regular basis; I think 3 to 5 year contracts would be much more common and reasonable). Even if they are so long, crappy WiFi could as well be ground for breach-of-contract, and they should be able to have the vendor get busy.

joeframbach 12y ago

Here we see in a smaller scale what a lack of ISP competition does to a region. This is basically what many municipalities bought into in order to afford Comcast's infrastructure 15 years ago.

ejr 12y ago

I can corroborate this. I did a network setup at a B&B that hadn't had any wi-fi since the place got internet. We bumped up their ISP plan to proper business class and got an upgraded router to boot. I ran wire from it to each floor via existing conduit and set up APs. No middle-man slave master for internet and certainly anyone else can service the setup after I was done. No other contract except their ISP. Everyone was happy. A neighbouring place just a few turns away had wireless quite early from some archaic monster and they charge a hefty fee too. I have better reception on my cell when I'm in a low valley than at that place - 2 bars max. All the guests were huddled in the lobby.

jonesdc 12y ago
Hey EJR, I am new to HN so not sure how to message you outside this thread. Do you have any links that could point me in the direction to do some of my own network setup at home? I'm just a beginner but would love to start learning and fix some stuff
- ejr 12y ago
  "Eli the Computer guy" does some pretty interesting video tutorials on YouTube. He tends to go on and on a bit, but overall he does a nice job of explaining networking basics, how to run cables, use RJ45 connectors - this is very important if you run your own wire - and setting up routers/switches. Edit: Here's the full playlist of his networking videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8RSFQG8do&list=PLF360ED1082F6F2A5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8RSFQG8do&list=PLF360ED108...
- gergles 12y ago
  Also, HN doesn't have a private messaging feature. If users don't put their email in the free-text field on their profile, there's no way to get in touch with them privately.
  - shekhar101 12y ago
    He probably also doesn't know that he isn't getting any 'notifications' for reply on his comments and most probably he's not going to see this either :D
    - jonesdc 12y ago
      Haha, I'm an avid reader of HN, so I tend to revisit articles to check for updates. Thanks for the help everyone

cynicalkane 12y ago

The standard solution (via Coase's theorem of economics) is that they should just buy out the contracts, but it seems this isn't happening. I wonder why this is.

pekk 12y ago
They don't care, switching is a pain and the given excuse is offered just to pacify the complaining customer. "Nothing we can do."
jpatokal 12y ago
Because the customer doesn't find out that the wifi is crap until they've already bought it, and they don't have an easy way of disputing the charge either. So unless repeat customers complain/start walking, the hotel has little incentive to pay money to fix this.
coldtea 12y ago
Because even Coase himself showed that his theorem is BS in real life situations: "In this 1960 paper, Coase argued that real-world transaction costs are rarely low enough to allow for efficient bargaining and hence the theorem is almost always inapplicable to economic reality."

antocv 12y ago

What is stopping them from offering a parallel much faster WiFi? They dont have to break their contract - pay the "external service provider" their fees, and still have money left over to pay for a real service - fast and non-shitty WiFi. When it comes to 4 or 5 star hotels, I am surprised by this bullshit. What they are in effect saying to you is "we made a bad business deal and it costs us too much", to which I replied -in a similar situation, 4 star hotel with 1992 wifi (yes it didnt exist at the time so shitty was it) -- "I must have made a bad trade myself, to pay for stay with wifi when the wifi in fact imaginary, good day" and never went to that hotel again, found a 3 star later on with 100mbps and uncongested wifi. Its not like paying for good WiFi will bankrupt them.

dspillett 12y ago
> What is stopping them from offering a parallel much faster WiFi? Exclusivity clause in the contract possibly. They could buy out the rest of the contract, but that could be quite expensive (and the other party is under no obligation to agree unless there is already an option defined in said contract). Even if the WiFi exclusivity is not explicitly stated there might be a clause about the hotel ensuring there is minimal interference with the service and setting up another set of APs on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands could be claimed to breach that clause if the provider wanted to get litigious. For chain hotels it is even harder as the decision of who to use to provide the service could be out of their hands.
- antocv 12y ago
  > They could buy out the rest of the contract, but that could be quite expensive (and the other party is under no obligation to agree unless there is already an option defined in said contract What kind of dumbmass businessman signs such a contract? No matter the price, the contract should have included "responsibility to meet customer expected speeds and availability of the wifi service provided". And then cut the contract because they arent in fact providing a usable wifi. I think its just a bullshit excuse to keep paying very little while not giving a crap about their customers - since they got the 4 or 5 star rating anyway. This website is great - I will use it.

mmmcm 12y ago

This is true. I worked for a global telecoms company with hotel groups as customers for several years. It was shocking how slow some of their connections were, and expensive too.

cnst 12y ago

I've asked a lot of hotels about these things, I was usually told that it's the hotel that doesn't want to pay a little extra for the higher speed uplink (by the support), or that they've already exhausted their budget for this year (believe it or not, the budget thing was at Hyatt House once). I'm not sure that many places would be under a 10-year contract; that sounds like too long a contract (especially if the company wants several grands for support on a regular basis; I think 3 to 5 year contracts would be much more common and reasonable). Even if they are so long, crappy WiFi could as well be ground for breach-of-contract, and they should be able to have the vendor get busy.